Golden glow for Hamish Lovemore

Hamish Lovemore’s star shone even brighter this weekend as he enjoyed a clean sweep of gold medals from the senior men’s events in a drama-filled South African Marathon Canoeing Championships in Upington.

The recent sprint World Cup silver medallist showed exactly why he is the most exciting paddler in South African canoeing at the moment when the claimed victories in both the short- and long-course K1 races on Friday and Saturday, and then wrapped up the weekend with a K2 win with Andy Birkett on Sunday.

In the women’s races, under 23 Jade Wilson was the star of the show with wins in the two K1 races while Saskia Hockly finally rescued a nightmare weekend with a win in the K2 race with Pippa McGregor.

Hockly must have been wondering what the universe had against her on Saturday night after she was forced out of contention due to rudder issues in both the two K1 races. In both cases, the junior, U23 and senior World Championship medallist was in the lead group at the time and must have fancied her chances of winning overall as well as picking up the U23 gold medal.

Hockly was able to redeem herself on Sunday by cruising home with Pippa McGregor in the K2 event with Jenna Nisbet and Wilson second in the two-boat race.

In the absence of her chief rival for the finish sprints, Wilson was able to comfortably won both the women’s K1 races. She took the short course gold when she outsprinted Nisbet and Nix Birkett at the finish. In the longer event she broke away from Birkett and Nisbet with Hockly, and was then able to cruise home to a convincing victory by more than a minute when Hockly’s rudder let her down for the second time in the weekend.

In the men’s races, Lovemore dominated both the tactics and the results all weekend. He never looked in danger of being worked off the front group in any of the three races and seemed to have speed to spare whenever tactics called for some movement in the front group.

Friday’s short-course event ended with the World Cup medalist cruising home just ahead of Birkett after the two made the decisive break at the final portage, with Uli Hart claiming the final medal ahead of Clint Cook.

In the long course K1, Birkett hit a submerged tree midway through the race and damaged his boat, which in turn caused Hart to swim. While Birkett taped his boat, Lovemore and Notten waited for Hart and the three-man group looked set for an tight three-way sprint until Notten hit the same obstacle. Lovemore then powered away from Hart with Notten limping home in third.

The K2 race saw six boats in contention for much of the race with the group constantly changing until eventually Birkett and Lovemore deservedly edged out Hank McGregor and Hart, while Cook and Notten completed the podium.